


Exchange in Good Faith

by orphan_account



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Community: Suitsmeme, Confessions, Gen, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trevor tries to absolve cynically religious Harvey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exchange in Good Faith

Trevor tosses the phone before he leaves. What matters if it cracks, he thinks, not waiting to see if it did as he closes the door to Mike's apartment.

The sky outside doesn't believe in mood reflections. It beams sunlight as brightly as ever on the grille of Mike's new bike. Trevor has his best suit on top, a half-pasted smile on his face, a grievance on his soul: all the things that will make him presentable when he tells whoever works at that firm of Mike's that they've been blinded by his goddamn brilliance.

"Trevor Evans," he'll say. "You're currently hiring a man who lied about his qualifications."

No, he won't say that. He's got to word it right. He drives to the park where he got his start dealing (it reminds him of things that work out for him) extra-careful because hitting a cop is not worth the satisfaction of putting his fist in someone's face.

No one would blame him for almost taking a swipe when a waif of a girl accosts him. One hand holds fliers, the other holds a sign: 

Confessions  
a Project of Transformative Beliefs

"It's really great, you've never been through anything like it, I promise." He slumps further into his chair and exposes the same glower he uses on people who don't pay for their pot. Undeterred, she babbles on, "Why don't you give it a try? We're just over there—" her fingers touch, tentatively, on his arm and she's a blonde with fine skin and green eyeshadow and a collar halfway around her throat— "you can tell us about anything you've done or want to do and we, um, we'll try to help you however we can, yeah?"

"Sure," he says, for the same reason he doesn't punch her. Her features take after this girl he used to know.

\--- ---

He's out of place with his coifs and cufflinks. 

He was hoodwinked into this place anyways. The velvet box these cafeteria Catholics, or whatever other name they're "reclaiming" for themselves, shut him into seems to attract all the heat in a mile radius and shove it all into his gut. When he strode up to the Project's table, they told him they needed more confessors, and wouldn't he be willing to help other people in need. All sorts of bullshit. It was good bullshit, though, because they, with endless _niceness_ , ruthlessly locked him up to listen to whiners instead of letting him discuss whether to tell Mike what he planned to do.

(They can't be tight anymore. Jab your betrayal up your own ass.) 

He tries different accents to take up time. When he hears the scuff of shoes on grass, he has almost squashed the Rs out of his speech in the stereotypical Harvard Yard pronunciation.

"Hey, man," Trevor manages. "What's up?"

The voice through the veil sounds like smugness wrapped in a box and fastened with a pink bow tie. When Trevor feels the way he does, he can't do anything but focus on the speck of mud on the man's loafers. You're not perfect either. "Is this how these meetings usually go, Father?"

"You tell me. I didn't come here to listen to nonsense, okay."

The shoes shift. The man seems to be sitting down now, but it's not any more intimate. "There's a sign outside that reads, we cannot promise nondisclosure for major legal crimes," the confessee says. "You won't have to hear that. That's my department."

"You're a lawyer?" Then, belatedly, "We're supposed to be anonymous."

The man laughs. "I make a living defending things I'm not supposed to do. Harvey Specter, senior partner at Pearson Hardman."

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten, Trevor counts. One time in a bar Mike gave me a business card with four lines, and one of them said: Associate. His memory isn't in the same city, let alone the same ballpark, as Mike's, but he knows another said "Pearson Hardman".

Then there's the little detail that Harvey saved his life. There's the little detail that Harvey called the resulting favor in just days ago. He's been trying to block those parts out of his memory, that voice; he should have known the moment Harvey used whatever smirk he probably still has on his face.

Harvey, he realizes, doesn't recognize him.

(Trevor was good at charades as a child. "Act like an angel," his third grade teacher would tell him, "you can do it when you act," and somewhere between then and meeting this nerdy kid whose hair never stood down and mouth never shut up, he kind of did.)

"Mr. Specter, confess whatever you goddamn came here to confess."

"Taking the Lord's name in vain?" Trevor can't see anything, all the blood in his brain keeps redirecting itself to his fists, but he can see the amusement on Harvey's face. "Usually, I admit, I go to weekly confession with people old enough to be my fathers."

"Don't judge the young," Trevor says, automatic. Then the kinship of being the only two in suits in this park draws his curiosity. "What's this usually like?"

"I meet a man who sounds like he could ever have authority over me."

That one kind of rankles. He's had his life threatened more times than Harvey ever could; he can say, with authority, that he's a survivor of all sorts of crap, that he doesn't have to be second place all the time. "Assume I do. What do you do?"

"I confess my crimes."

"Confess, then," Trevor says. Inspiration pushes at him. "If you want actual penance, we could take this to an alley too after, I know a guy and a place."

"That... won't be necessary," Harvey says, although the asshole image Trevor took away from their first meeting recedes with the tones of _wanting_ in Harvey's voice. There's only the babble of other people with their other issues for nearly a minute.

Says the man who wants a beating, "This isn't real. I go through papers six days a week and mass on the seventh. I believe in— things, or people, and they let me down, then it's my job to close the deal, fix whatever happened. All the time, for people who can't clean up their own messes."

"That's not a crime, but I know what you mean," Trevor tells him.

"I don't perjure myself on the stand, ever." Trevor has said things like that to himself before; they don't reassure him. "But where can we draw the line between bearing false witness to the judge. False witnesses to ourselves. I've this associate, he had an idea over the weekend—"

Trevor interrupts Harvey with "Yeah, okay," first because the melodrama of this isn't real to him either, and second because he knows who that associate is.

"—perfect plan, but all that schoolboy guilt smashes me in the head after."

"We all have bigger sins, man."

"I killed a man, metaphorically, twelve years ago."

"I wanted to kill a guy I've known for a lot longer than that," Trevor says. (He still does.)

He still can't see anything, due to the black box, but that half-smile Harvey gave him when they walked out of Matt's house slides across his brain.

"You know, kid, I like you. You need a lawyer for that?"

"Nah. I'm not going to do it..."

"My boss probably has my billables summary in one hand and a knife for my balls in the other, then," Harvey says. "Thank— thank you."

(After Harvey leaves, only after he's far out of earshot, does Trevor continue, "... literally." It's only fair, thou shalt not kill and all that jazz.)

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of [this kink meme fill](http://suitsmeme.livejournal.com/3323.html?thread=4509435#t4509435). All kinds of feedback welcome and appreciated!


End file.
